Strange Collaboration: Farrar, Gibbard

Death Volt

From Rolling Stone:

Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Son Volt frontman Jay Farrar have teamed up for a set of original music inspired by Jack Kerouac’s novel Big Sur. The music will be featured in an upcoming documentary about the cult author entitled One Fast Move Or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur. Gibbard and Farrar, who began working on music for the project in 2007, used Kerouac’s own Big Sur prose for the song’s lyrics.

Both the documentary and its soundtrack, featuring 12 new songs from Gibbard and Farrar, will be released on October 20th, the 40th anniversary of Kerouac’s death. The doc will also feature appearances from both Gibbard and Farrar, as well as rock poet laureate and “living god” Tom Waits, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Patti Smith and playwright Sam Shepard. One Fast Move Or I’m Gone will be released as a stand-alone album, a CD/DVD combo featuring the doc or a special edition with the CD/DVD, a 40-page book and a copy of Kerouac’s Big Sur.

As Rock Daily previously reported, Gibbard is a well-known follower of Kerouac’s works: On 2008’s Narrow Stairs, the track “Bixby Canyon Bridge” is filled with references to the Beat Generation author — Gibbard actually composed songs for the album while staying in the cabin Kerouac wrote about in Big Sur — and both We Have The Facts and We’re Voting Yes’s “Title Track” and “Lowell, MA” feature lyrics penned in the style of Kerouac (Lowell, Massachussets was Kerouac’s hometown.)

Check out the soundtrack’s track list below:

One Fast Move Or I’m Gone
1. “California Zephyr”
2. “Low Life Kingdom”
3. “Willamine”
4. “All In One”
5. “Breathe Our Iodine”
6. “These Roads Don’t Move”
7. “Big Sur”
8. “One Fast Move Or I’m Gone”
9. “Final Horrors”
10. “Sea Engines”
11. “The Void”
12. “San Francisco”